I'm not a fan of generalizing any large swath of Americans as potential traitors unless they prove otherwise. If they wanted to say a small group like Antifa was, well, they already claim to be communists and are actual violent thugs, so it works. But to paint several states as essentially being traitors to their country is just wrong, IMO.

Deliberately or not, several major American institutions have adopted philosophies that attempt to shape America in the specific ways that the Soviets tried to shape America via propaganda efforts. The entertainment industry in California, in particular, has shaped a massive swath of the culture. Particularly in parts of California, Oregon, and Washington. Current Marvel, too, as you can see, is very much of the "communism never really failed" and "capitalism and fascism are the same thing" persuasion. Plus the whole "America is a horrible racist/misogynist/homophobic place and everyone should resist the awful straight white man!" shtick. That's right - intersectional feminism is a Kremlin plot, according to captured documents.

Uh huh, and I'm sure the US Army also attempted to assassinate boxing promoter Bob Arum...

It astonishes me that the left wing simultaneously believes that Russia definitely conspired with Trump to influence the 2016 election, and that it was definitely, 100% the first time they ever did so. It's like they never even heard of the Cold War. I can kind of understand that they don't think that Hollywood was guilty, because they learned about the matter from Hollywood. It's cute, how Hollywood claimed to not be Communist Party aligned, when their stance on Hitler pivoted 180 degrees depending on if he currently had a treaty with Russia or not. But I suppose that if propaganda didn't work, they wouldn't have spent millions of dollars a year on it.

He's basically said that a large portion of the "flyover states" (everything west of Chicago and easy of Vegas) are Russian collaborators waiting to happen. That there is a literal army of people who will happily join up with Russia and see them as liberators, aiding them in overthrowing the US government. That the very heartland of the country is essentially Russian and happily sign up to join with a Russian supervillain.

You see, those States voted for Trump, and to this day there's people that insist that Russia meaningfully interfered with the US elections to make Trump president. Ergo, these people may just as well be Russian collaborators.

Just this one page seems informative, but not like it's telling the whole story.

Who is this woman? I guess she's Russian. Did she recruit ENTIRE STATES, or just many people within it?

Given Coates' own biases, I'm sure he's not as sympathetic to the "Our voices have been ignored!" flyover states that voted Trump, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut- just from this page, it seems like he's giving them the "out" and pointing out that they WERE shunned and ignored. Granted, this is through the mouth of a villain.

He's basically said that a large portion of the "flyover states" (everything west of Chicago and easy of Vegas) are Russian collaborators waiting to happen. That there is a literal army of people who will happily join up with Russia and see them as liberators, aiding them in overthrowing the US government. That the very heartland of the country is essentially Russian and happily sign up to join with a Russian supervillain.

You see, those States voted for Trump, and to this day there's people that insist that Russia meaningfully interfered with the US elections to make Trump president. Ergo, these people may just as well be Russian collaborators.

Just this one page seems informative, but not like it's telling the whole story.

Who is this woman? I guess she's Russian. Did she recruit ENTIRE STATES, or just many people within it?

Given Coates' own biases, I'm sure he's not as sympathetic to the "Our voices have been ignored!" flyover states that voted Trump, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut- just from this page, it seems like he's giving them the "out" and pointing out that they WERE shunned and ignored. Granted, this is through the mouth of a villain.

The whole thing reminds me of the fiasco with the Evil Cap story, where Red Skull was echoing the legitimate concerns that real people have. Suggesting that even thinking that way was evil, and that any leaders saying similar things were Nazis. Led to a lot of #HailHYDRA the next few weeks.

So, the first issue of Geoff Johns new "Shazam" series came out. And I was actually surprised.

I didn't hate it. I don't like it, but I don't hate it.

That might be damning with faint praise, but at least here I didn't end the book wanting to do bad things to Geoff Johns. Because you have to understand, "Curse of Shazam", the Nu-52 introduction of their version of Captain Marvel, is just about the worst thing I've read involving the Marvel Family, tied only with "Trials of Shazam". Even the horrible stuff featuring them after Trials and Curse, such as Final Crisis, Nu-Shazam's Justice League and Batman appearances, weren't as bad because they wouldn't have existed without those horrible stories. I hate "Curse of Shazam" as only someone watching something he loves burn can hate.

So it was actually kind of a pleasant surprise that Johns new "Shazam" series is more . . . well, I'd call it "disappointing", but it exceeded my expectations by not simply being "Curse of Shazam" Part 2, Electric Boogaloo. But as a book featuring the Marvel Family, yeah, it's still bellow average of what I’d expect of a comic book.

Johns has clearly listened to the internet backlash regarding the character, and he's dialed back Billy Batson's negative traits. He's still not classic Billy, but he's much less of an out and out asshole the first version was. According to the text, it's been about a year since Billy first became "Nu-Shazam", and in that time he's become much closer to his foster family. He basically acts as ringleader to the rest of the crew. He also shows an interest in things like history, which is actually kind of refreshing.

However, Johns also tries to play a little revisionist history with things. See, Johns clearly wanted us all to see Billy as a sympathetic hero, as a good person who was in a bad place, and was acting out as a defense mechanism to keep others from getting too close. That his decision to protect others from bullies showed what kind of person he truly was. That he felt bad when he made one of his foster siblings cry. Forgetting that 90% of our exposure to Billy was him being an abrasive, selfish jerk, making that foster sibling cry, agreeing that it was okay to bully others, telling a Wizard that good people don't exist, and only being able to empathize with someone because he thought they were exactly like himself.

So in this book, John literally has panels explaining the Curse of Shazam series, and includes text boxes that read:

"The Wizard saw a delinquent boy before him. A foster child bouncing from home to home. A troublemaker, many would say. Unless they looked deeper. The Wizard peered into the boy's soul and found a child who had lost his family. His parents had disappeared when he was very young and he put up walls to protect his heart. The Wizard looked past Billy's pain and marveled at the potential within him the rest of the world had ignored. Billy defended the weak from bullies. He helped those in need despite his own misfortunes. Billy Batson proved worthy."

"marveled at the potential within him the rest of the world had ignored". Subtle Johns. REAL subtle.

And I should point out, the "Billy defended the weak from bullies"? Yeah, he does that all of once. You could technically say he did it twice, but that time he and Freddy were out trying to screw with the bullies car, and when they got caught, Billy hid Freddy and drew the bullies away from his friend. Pulling aggro so his crippled friend doesn't get hurt is well and good, but I don't count it because they were caught in the middle of performing vandalism on someone else's property. So Johns basically made sure to spell out why Billy was picked and why we're all so dumb for not realizing it.

The scenes with the kids in their powered up forms that are meant to come off as kind of fun and light-hearted come off as almost slapstic and random. The fight is against a group of completely non-powered robbers that has absolutely no stakes, and it's honestly overkill to have this many high powered heroes dealing with thugs with guns. I mean, don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that heroes of any power level taking time to stop a robbery is a good thing. It's just that these guys wouldn't have been a problem for Spider-Man, let alone 6 Shazam-powered kids who actually equaled the number of robbers. Seriously, there was one kid for each robber. It had zero tension and wasn't really fun.

The kids are now stated to be living in Philadelphia, which is weird, but okay.

The kids themselves largely lack any personality outside of Billy and Freddy. Billy is still a bit arrogant, but he’s also clearly chilled out a bit, wanting to be a good leader for the kids and considering them family. Freddy is still the same con-artist, troublemaking jackass from Curse. Mary doesn’t do much by try to keep the team on track. Darla is enthusiastic about everything and still reads like she’s a special needs case. Pedro is big. Eugene is smart. That’s about it.

Dale Eaglesham is a great artist, but for whatever reason he is just not cut out for this book. His pages are just too crowded, he has a hard time conveying energy, everyone's faces just look weird, it's just kind of a mess. He tries to be clever with the panel lay out and inject energy into what he's doing, but it really just comes off as more of a frantic mess. And of course, the Nu-Shazam outfits still look like hot garbage on these kids. I've said before that the outfit itself isn't bad, it just makes a very poor Captain Marvel costume. You change out the lightning image for any other kind of symbol and slap it on a character who is suppose to be a spellcaster, and it'd actually look fine. But on Captain Marvel, it just looks bad, and Dale's art does not improve it. Though at the very least they got rid of all of the unnecessary chest lines the original look had.

A running gag with the book is that no one knows what to call the Shazam kids. See, in Curse of Shazam, in order to get around the "my name can't be my magic word because I can't introduce myself" issue, they'd tweaked it so that Billy basically had to want to change when he spoke the word for the change to happen. He could say "Shazam" all he wanted, but it wouldn't trigger the lightning unless he wanted it to. This issue reveals that Billy can no longer say his name without changing, and as a result, he can't introduce himself by that name anymore. At one point they're trying to come up with code names, and Billy says, "I just want something I can say. How about Captain Marv-" before getting cut off. Keep getting your digs in, Johns.

There's a bit where the cops ask the kids who they are and who's in charge, only for the kids to get sidetracked discussing which of them should be the leader, so the cops finally just decide to say that Superman saved the day. On the one hand, it got a single chuckle out of me. On the other hand, of course we needed a Superman reference in the first issue of this book.

But naturally Johns keeps referencing this gag every two pages, and over family dinner, the kids are all tossing out a half dozen theoretical names for what their superteam is. It’s likely meant to be a fun jab at the name problems the Marvel Family has suffered since the 60s, but it’s getting into “dead horse” territory before the 15 page mark.

So, the first 14 pages are overall pretty bad, though not “Curse of Shazam” bad.

The last 8 pages, by contrast, are actually kind of interesting. There’s a “Chronicles of Narnia/80s Kid Show” feel as the kids go to their room and Billy uses an ability to link the doorway of their room to the Rock of Eternity, allowing them to enter the Rock via the closet.

There we get something I’ve wanted for a while: The Rock of Eternity is treated as a pretty awesome headquarters, a massive mountain full of strange rooms, one of which has just opened up to reveal a subway station, with the train design taken straight from the classic Fawcett Comics.

They also reveal that there are “Seven Magiclands”, with a map of them being at the station, giving us a sort of “World Tree” view of the Rock and the realms it’s apparently connected to. Part of the opening narration talks about how the Rock of Eternity was once in view of everyone, a place of magical learning where the Seven Wizards and Sorceresses vowed to protect all magic. Until Black Adam betrayed and murdered all but the final Wizard. And while Shazam chose Billy to be the new champion of magic, Billy apparently doesn’t know what the “true purpose” of the Rock of Eternity or the Seven Thrones is, or how it relates to the Seven Magiclands.

Clearly we’re going to be spending the next few issues visiting said lands, and that bit of worldbuilding is actually kind of interesting. Some older Captain Marvel stories use to have Cap travel to other dimensions, and embracing the Urban Fantasy aspects of the kids is a good idea. Captain Marvel is the kind of character who should be equally at home fighting supervillains, or traveling to some Dittko-esque magic realm to fight Cthulhu, or winding up on some Narnia/D&D/Warcraft style fantasy realm to fight dragons.

So the last third of the story is where it actually gets my interest, though again it’s a mixed bag. I like the idea of them actually doing something with the Rock of Eternity, making it feel as big and epic as it should, and exploring the idea of traveling to other realms with it. The Rock of Eternity was really one of the more under-utilized aspects of the Marvel Family Post Crisis, so it’s nice to see it get some use again.

At the same time, part of it feels a bit “trying to hard” with the whole “uncovering the Rock’s TRUE purpose!”, as well as potentially limiting the Rock to just those seven realms. The Rock of Eternity was originally a mountain the size of a star sitting at the heart of existence (literally a the center of time and space) acting as a prison for a demon that was the literal embodiment of evil, known as the Three Faces of Evill (which got a cool Lovecraftian re-imagining by Jerry Ordway). The Rock serves as a base for Shazam, Cap and the Marvel Family, allowing them to travel to any point in time, space or dimension, including the multiverse. It’s a base of operations and a way to let the Marvel Family travel anywhere or any when for any kind of adventure. So now I’m wondering if Johns is just going to overcomplicate things or not.

Also, Billy’s dad (thought to be dead but only described as “missing”) turns up alive at the end of the issue. So we’ll see where that goes.

There’s a backup story featuring Mary by Johns, featuring art by noted Shazam enthusiast Mayo “Sen” Naito. Its honestly the best part of the issue, and deserves reading on its own. There’s also an obvious reference to Hoppy the Marvel Bunny that feels . . . I don’t know. It’s a cute reference, but it also feels like one of those things that, unless you want to embrace a Captain Carrot-like superhero rabbit completely, just keep it a normal bunny.

So overall, like I said, it’s not terrible. It’s not great, but even being “not great” is way better than what I was expecting, and there’s some legitimately good ideas and potential worldbuilding going on here. I’m going to follow the book, but won’t commit to buying this just yet. If the first storyarc turns out well I might go back and buy the whole run, but for now I just plan to see where it goes.

So, the first issue of Geoff Johns new "Shazam" series came out. And I was actually surprised.

I didn't hate it. I don't like it, but I don't hate it.

That might be damning with faint praise, but at least here I didn't end the book wanting to do bad things to Geoff Johns. Because you have to understand, "Curse of Shazam", the Nu-52 introduction of their version of Captain Marvel, is just about the worst thing I've read involving the Marvel Family, tied only with "Trials of Shazam". Even the horrible stuff featuring them after Trials and Curse, such as Final Crisis, Nu-Shazam's Justice League and Batman appearances, weren't as bad because they wouldn't have existed without those horrible stories. I hate "Curse of Shazam" as only someone watching something he loves burn can hate.

So it was actually kind of a pleasant surprise that Johns new "Shazam" series is more . . . well, I'd call it "disappointing", but it exceeded my expectations by not simply being "Curse of Shazam" Part 2, Electric Boogaloo. But as a book featuring the Marvel Family, yeah, it's still bellow average of what I’d expect of a comic book.

Johns has clearly listened to the internet backlash regarding the character, and he's dialed back Billy Batson's negative traits. He's still not classic Billy, but he's much less of an out and out asshole the first version was. According to the text, it's been about a year since Billy first became "Nu-Shazam", and in that time he's become much closer to his foster family. He basically acts as ringleader to the rest of the crew. He also shows an interest in things like history, which is actually kind of refreshing.

However, Johns also tries to play a little revisionist history with things. See, Johns clearly wanted us all to see Billy as a sympathetic hero, as a good person who was in a bad place, and was acting out as a defense mechanism to keep others from getting too close. That his decision to protect others from bullies showed what kind of person he truly was. That he felt bad when he made one of his foster siblings cry. Forgetting that 90% of our exposure to Billy was him being an abrasive, selfish jerk, making that foster sibling cry, agreeing that it was okay to bully others, telling a Wizard that good people don't exist, and only being able to empathize with someone because he thought they were exactly like himself.

So in this book, John literally has panels explaining the Curse of Shazam series, and includes text boxes that read:

"The Wizard saw a delinquent boy before him. A foster child bouncing from home to home. A troublemaker, many would say. Unless they looked deeper. The Wizard peered into the boy's soul and found a child who had lost his family. His parents had disappeared when he was very young and he put up walls to protect his heart. The Wizard looked past Billy's pain and marveled at the potential within him the rest of the world had ignored. Billy defended the weak from bullies. He helped those in need despite his own misfortunes. Billy Batson proved worthy."

"marveled at the potential within him the rest of the world had ignored". Subtle Johns. REAL subtle.

And I should point out, the "Billy defended the weak from bullies"? Yeah, he does that all of once. You could technically say he did it twice, but that time he and Freddy were out trying to screw with the bullies car, and when they got caught, Billy hid Freddy and drew the bullies away from his friend. Pulling aggro so his crippled friend doesn't get hurt is well and good, but I don't count it because they were caught in the middle of performing vandalism on someone else's property. So Johns basically made sure to spell out why Billy was picked and why we're all so dumb for not realizing it.

The scenes with the kids in their powered up forms that are meant to come off as kind of fun and light-hearted come off as almost slapstic and random. The fight is against a group of completely non-powered robbers that has absolutely no stakes, and it's honestly overkill to have this many high powered heroes dealing with thugs with guns. I mean, don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that heroes of any power level taking time to stop a robbery is a good thing. It's just that these guys wouldn't have been a problem for Spider-Man, let alone 6 Shazam-powered kids who actually equaled the number of robbers. Seriously, there was one kid for each robber. It had zero tension and wasn't really fun.

The kids are now stated to be living in Philadelphia, which is weird, but okay.

The kids themselves largely lack any personality outside of Billy and Freddy. Billy is still a bit arrogant, but he’s also clearly chilled out a bit, wanting to be a good leader for the kids and considering them family. Freddy is still the same con-artist, troublemaking jackass from Curse. Mary doesn’t do much by try to keep the team on track. Darla is enthusiastic about everything and still reads like she’s a special needs case. Pedro is big. Eugene is smart. That’s about it.

Dale Eaglesham is a great artist, but for whatever reason he is just not cut out for this book. His pages are just too crowded, he has a hard time conveying energy, everyone's faces just look weird, it's just kind of a mess. He tries to be clever with the panel lay out and inject energy into what he's doing, but it really just comes off as more of a frantic mess. And of course, the Nu-Shazam outfits still look like hot garbage on these kids. I've said before that the outfit itself isn't bad, it just makes a very poor Captain Marvel costume. You change out the lightning image for any other kind of symbol and slap it on a character who is suppose to be a spellcaster, and it'd actually look fine. But on Captain Marvel, it just looks bad, and Dale's art does not improve it. Though at the very least they got rid of all of the unnecessary chest lines the original look had.

A running gag with the book is that no one knows what to call the Shazam kids. See, in Curse of Shazam, in order to get around the "my name can't be my magic word because I can't introduce myself" issue, they'd tweaked it so that Billy basically had to want to change when he spoke the word for the change to happen. He could say "Shazam" all he wanted, but it wouldn't trigger the lightning unless he wanted it to. This issue reveals that Billy can no longer say his name without changing, and as a result, he can't introduce himself by that name anymore. At one point they're trying to come up with code names, and Billy says, "I just want something I can say. How about Captain Marv-" before getting cut off. Keep getting your digs in, Johns.

There's a bit where the cops ask the kids who they are and who's in charge, only for the kids to get sidetracked discussing which of them should be the leader, so the cops finally just decide to say that Superman saved the day. On the one hand, it got a single chuckle out of me. On the other hand, of course we needed a Superman reference in the first issue of this book.

But naturally Johns keeps referencing this gag every two pages, and over family dinner, the kids are all tossing out a half dozen theoretical names for what their superteam is. It’s likely meant to be a fun jab at the name problems the Marvel Family has suffered since the 60s, but it’s getting into “dead horse” territory before the 15 page mark.

So, the first 14 pages are overall pretty bad, though not “Curse of Shazam” bad.

The last 8 pages, by contrast, are actually kind of interesting. There’s a “Chronicles of Narnia/80s Kid Show” feel as the kids go to their room and Billy uses an ability to link the doorway of their room to the Rock of Eternity, allowing them to enter the Rock via the closet.

There we get something I’ve wanted for a while: The Rock of Eternity is treated as a pretty awesome headquarters, a massive mountain full of strange rooms, one of which has just opened up to reveal a subway station, with the train design taken straight from the classic Fawcett Comics.

They also reveal that there are “Seven Magiclands”, with a map of them being at the station, giving us a sort of “World Tree” view of the Rock and the realms it’s apparently connected to. Part of the opening narration talks about how the Rock of Eternity was once in view of everyone, a place of magical learning where the Seven Wizards and Sorceresses vowed to protect all magic. Until Black Adam betrayed and murdered all but the final Wizard. And while Shazam chose Billy to be the new champion of magic, Billy apparently doesn’t know what the “true purpose” of the Rock of Eternity or the Seven Thrones is, or how it relates to the Seven Magiclands.

Clearly we’re going to be spending the next few issues visiting said lands, and that bit of worldbuilding is actually kind of interesting. Some older Captain Marvel stories use to have Cap travel to other dimensions, and embracing the Urban Fantasy aspects of the kids is a good idea. Captain Marvel is the kind of character who should be equally at home fighting supervillains, or traveling to some Dittko-esque magic realm to fight Cthulhu, or winding up on some Narnia/D&D/Warcraft style fantasy realm to fight dragons.

So the last third of the story is where it actually gets my interest, though again it’s a mixed bag. I like the idea of them actually doing something with the Rock of Eternity, making it feel as big and epic as it should, and exploring the idea of traveling to other realms with it. The Rock of Eternity was really one of the more under-utilized aspects of the Marvel Family Post Crisis, so it’s nice to see it get some use again.

At the same time, part of it feels a bit “trying to hard” with the whole “uncovering the Rock’s TRUE purpose!”, as well as potentially limiting the Rock to just those seven realms. The Rock of Eternity was originally a mountain the size of a star sitting at the heart of existence (literally a the center of time and space) acting as a prison for a demon that was the literal embodiment of evil, known as the Three Faces of Evill (which got a cool Lovecraftian re-imagining by Jerry Ordway). The Rock serves as a base for Shazam, Cap and the Marvel Family, allowing them to travel to any point in time, space or dimension, including the multiverse. It’s a base of operations and a way to let the Marvel Family travel anywhere or any when for any kind of adventure. So now I’m wondering if Johns is just going to overcomplicate things or not.

Also, Billy’s dad (thought to be dead but only described as “missing”) turns up alive at the end of the issue. So we’ll see where that goes.

There’s a backup story featuring Mary by Johns, featuring art by noted Shazam enthusiast Mayo “Sen” Naito. Its honestly the best part of the issue, and deserves reading on its own. There’s also an obvious reference to Hoppy the Marvel Bunny that feels . . . I don’t know. It’s a cute reference, but it also feels like one of those things that, unless you want to embrace a Captain Carrot-like superhero rabbit completely, just keep it a normal bunny.

So overall, like I said, it’s not terrible. It’s not great, but even being “not great” is way better than what I was expecting, and there’s some legitimately good ideas and potential worldbuilding going on here. I’m going to follow the book, but won’t commit to buying this just yet. If the first storyarc turns out well I might go back and buy the whole run, but for now I just plan to see where it goes.

I was going to ask you what you thought of this 1st issue, now I know. For me it was better as well than 52. It did seem to try and deal with its previous issues. That being said I cannot wait to see the Magic Lands. If I had a say train the kids to be the new wizards and temper Billy into a effective leader that he should be. It has potential and I hope it gets the chance to grow. I may be a old fashioned guy but get rid of the energy symbol on Captain Marvel chest and replace it with the old one.

A problem for is that they still seem to be pushing the idea of the Shazam Family as a group of lightning shooting flying bricks with potential to be wizards.

And it still doesn't feel right having Captain Marvel shooting lightning out of his hands. It's weird, because as a kid I thought that was an obvious power he should have had, but now I've completely flipped on it and prefer the only real "ranged attack" the Marvels have be either throwing large objects or being clever with the Shazam bolt. Otherwise, I feel the whole crackling electricity thing should be used as a visual cue that Captain Marvel is really pushing himself hard, possibly amping his abilities with the Power of Zeus.

Cap should be more like mythological Hercules than a Wizard, using cleverness in conjunction with his physical abilities to solve his problems. Giving him an at-will lightning blast just makes him more like Superman and Thor.

I have Shazam! A Celebration of 75 Years, and I'm very happy with most of it. There's one nu-Shazam story at the end that proves one of these things is not like the other. But overall, it's a pretty good mix, despite having some of the more frequently reprinted golden age stories.

I've flipped through Teen Titans, A Celebration of 50 Years at my local library. I was unimpressed. With a few exceptions ("Who is Donna Troy"; "the Judas Contract, part 4"), it seemed like they tried to find the weakest stories from various eras.